Muñoz Mehadrin UK this week launched Absolutely Pink, a newly branded grape, exclusively with M&S.
The first arrivals of the pink grape, which is in fact the Australian-bred Ralli, were heralded with a splash of colourful PR.
Ralli is licensed to and produced by Antonio Muñoz in Murcia, southern Spain. The magenta-pink colour and distinctive honey-like sweetness stands the grape apart and UK retailers have been awaiting commercial volumes with great anticipation.
This is the first season that has yielded sufficient volume to supply a UK retailer with a full programme and M&S has secured the exclusive brand through its category supplier, MMUK.
The Ralli licence is managed by Special New Fruit Licensing Ltd in Europe, and SNFL managing director Duncan MacIntyre told FPJ: “Grapes are a hugely important part of the fruit category, but there are basically only two products available to consumers - red and white.
“We are trying to bring the level of interest in different varieties of table grape up to what we have with wine grapes. There is the same diversity of flavour and trademarking Ralli is a way of perhaps getting more customer identification with a modern image for the variety. Hopefully, this is the first stage of a project that will include more of our grape varieties.”
The Spanish Absolutely Pink grapes will be on M&S shelves for around six weeks, priced at £2.99 for a 600g punnet.
Spain is the major source for Ralli. The variety has also already been planted under licence in Greece, South Africa, Namibia and Chile and fruit will be available from all of these sources later in 2006.
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